


Supernatural: The Early Days

by yourlibrarian



Series: Reviews [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Review, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 20:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6768631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having read over the early SPN Pilot draft, I have some general observations and comments about the differences between the original series concept and the pilot we actually saw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Supernatural: The Early Days

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted September 2, 2007

Having read over the early SPN Pilot draft, I have some general observations and comments about the differences between the original series concept and the pilot we actually saw.

For starters, Mary was always Mary, and John was Jack, but Harrison isn't nearly as gripping a name as Winchester, though perhaps having the symbolic name means Sam and Dean don't always have to be carrying some piece of weaponry.

While Mary was specified as being in her late 20s, Jack was noted as being 30. Which means his service period in the military would have been in his early 20s rather than at 18. It's never specified he was a Marine, just that he wears dress whites in a wedding photo. This would also make John 52. He looks good for his age.

There was also more product placement in this script. Some pretty specific stuff was in Sam's nursery and in the final scene Sam mentions his Ikea chair.

Some small changes in the first scene, mostly that we see Mary react on seeing the demon, John picks Sam up before he sees Mary, and it's specified she is dead before the fire starts. The big one is the "Coming for You" message burned into the wall of the nursery and that John carries both Sam and Dean out of the house.

Sam's specified as being 23, and Dean is still 26. The opening Stanford scene has a lot more dialogue about his family, he's shown as being a great darts player, and he has a clerking job for a judge. He's already in law school. He also has never met Jess' family as she invites him to go home with her for Thanksgiving. One would assume then that they haven't been dating that long, certainly not since he arrived at Stanford. Sam later implies that he and Jess aren't living together, she's just sleeping over.

It's specified Dean broke in by breaking the bathroom window, and Sam keeps all his weaponry in a suitcase in the hall closet. He attacks Dean with a knife, and Dean quickly disarms him. No fight scene. Jess also had more lines, she's concerned that their father is missing and is curious about where Dean and Sam go.

A big change: Dean has already found their father's journal and there's no dialogue between them as they leave the building, though their childhood's brought up after they discuss John's disappearance. Also, Sam implies that Dean sided with John and said that they hadn't spoken in a year.

The city they go to is Sanger, and we see Constance picked up but there is no indication Troy is dating anyone. Rather, he's dressed like Harry Potter leaving a Halloween party. We never see the bloody scene on the bridge, nor do Sam and Dean stop there on the way into town.

It's implied Dean has done something to the Impala, and has installed switches on the dashboard. They're driving, not at a gas station. Dean also mentions Sam liked the Spin Doctors. Sam calls all the hospitals and bars in the town on the way. They go straight to the sheriff's office where there are various other law enforcement types. They impersonate federal marshals and are given a look at evidence. Sam's anxious about what a legal entanglement could mean for his career. It's stated that the cars have disappeared and there's a necklace Sam is curious about, which turns out to be Constance's.

Sam and Dean go to a high school library and interview Troy's friends while posing as his uncles. Sam references Bloody Mary as a past event for the two of them. Dean wants to pick up the high school girls they interviewed.

The public library research discovers Constance disappeared while hitchhiking and was murdered by a serial killer who buried her and 5 others in his backyard. Sam and Dean stake out the mile marker where these disappearances happen, and Dean tells Sam he hurt their father who felt Sam had been away at college long enough and was wounded by Sam telling him that all their hunting wouldn't bring their mother back. Sam also mentions he wants to marry Jess in the future and have kids who won't be terrified all the time.

Dean and Sam end up chasing Constance in a cornfield and discover the five missing cars arranged like spokes on a wheel with the men dead inside them. I assumed this meant she was buried in the center but if this is the case it's never brought up. The next morning in the motel Sam has called their discovery into 911 and Dean wants to take off because John wasn't one of the victims. Sam insists they close the case.

They interview Constance's adopted mother who said she lost her parents in a car crash at 11. Her diary contains "I can never go home" written multiple times. Her murderer, who shot her, is imprisoned in Folsom. Sam rents a GEO to avoid stealing a car, and goes to Folsom to interview him, calling on his boss to get him in. The "killer" (named Burroughs) tells Sam that Constance lived with him but would pick men up and kill them in her old house, in retaliation for religious abuse she suffered as a child. She had killed her parents to stop it. Burroughs tells Sam he buried her beneath an oak tree and killed Constance to stop her killings. Dean digs up the casket but it's empty. On his way to rejoin Dean, Sam inadvertently picks Constance up as he did in the pilot.

The scene at the house is the same, only Constance fears her parents, not her children. Sam has been more badly hurt, slashed by Constance, and the two are just trying to escape her. Sam comments that they won't get the deposit back on the rental (which makes a whole lot more sense than how Dean ended up at the house ahead of Sam in the pilot).

Dean and Sam are feeling good about their successful hunt as they drive back and Dean tells Sam they're going to their home (though it's not specified where that is) to try and pick up their father's trail. Dean then realizes Sam's not going with him and Dean says he gives up on Sam, that he doesn't care anymore.

When Dean drops Sam off however, he sees Sam's window rippling and decides to go back, breaking into the building to get to him. In the apartment there are flickering lights and a stopped clock as there was 22 years earlier. Jess is also described as being dead, the words appear again on the wall. Sam jumps on a chair trying to get Jess down as Dean pulls him away. There's the fire scene at the end but no final words at the Impala.

* * *

Certainly the basic structure of the show was set up already in this draft and a lot of the dialogue and scenes are the same, even though the case ends up being fairly different. I'm not sure why it was changed, really. The set up is much the same, it's just the reason for the events that are different. In fact, I'd say that the reveal for the original story was more interesting in that Constance is the killer while first being portrayed as a victim, whereas we know early on that the lady in white murdered her children. Of course, unexplained in this early draft is what happened to Constance's body since the newspaper account mentioned her body was found in Burroughs' backyard and he later said she was buried elsewhere and Dean did find a coffin. Rather a large plothole really -- why bury the body in two places, or why bury an empty coffin at all? Also, why would Constance be so concerned about wanting to go home since she was so miserable there? At least in the pilot version Constance once had a happy home and presumably loved her children.

The most significant changes all have to do with what it tells us about the family. For one, Lawrence has not been chosen as their hometown, but they do have a home. I found this startling, and realized that, given the show's format, there was the assumption that the Winchesters had always lived this way. But I can't remember offhand if the show ever referenced how often they moved in childhood. It could have been four or five times, which would have been a lot but not the constant state of movement implied in a lot of fic where Sam and Dean never finish out a school year in the same town. Sam does reference road trips and it's entirely possible that summers were spent on the road, with them settling for the school year. Apparently they didn't move nearly so often and did have a home base, even years after Sam had left for college when there was no longer a reason to do so.

Sam is also a bit older, in his first year of law school, and the fight occurred after he'd already been away at college. Which changes a lot in terms of John's motivation in keeping the family together since Sam has already been away for years before the big falling out. It's also implied through discussions of family dysfunction that the family problems had a lot to do with John's alcohol abuse and obsessive behavior rather than because of their lifestyle. When Sam talks about kids being terrified all the time, one would assume it had as much to do with the household situation as with encountering supernatural creatures.

Sam and Jess' relationship is also suggested to be less important than it was in the pilot -- more recent, and less committed. This makes sense in several respects. The first is that it's much easier to understand how Jess would have known little about Sam's family given that he has yet to meet hers, and they haven't known one another as long. Sam is serious about her, but not at the proposal stage. Sam is shown as being more focused on his career, and is probably thinking of marriage after graduation and a job. It also makes sense that she wouldn't have discovered his cache of weapons since they don't live together.

We don't really find out much more about Dean, except that he is not the over-committed brother we later get to know. Sam says Dean practically locked him out of the house after the family fight, and Dean is apparently ready to throw in the towel on their relationship even though their separation has been fairly recent. It's implied he really did get Sam to join him because of his concern for John, not because he wanted an excuse to see Sam. John's disappearance is rather more mysterious since it appears he left the journal at the family home and never was in California at all. Dean simply assumed this due to the most recent case notes.

In short, Dean and Sam seem less close than they do in the pilot, and Sam's feeling of being the odd man out in the family seems fairly justified. On the other hand, the literal writing on the wall both times makes it pretty clear Sam is the demon's target, and John would have known this from the start.


End file.
